COCA-COLA yesterday hit back at claims that its soft drinks in India contain unacceptably high levels of pesticide residue by publishing a British laboratory report showing that they are safe to drink.

The Central Science Laboratory (CSL), an executive agency of the Government, reported that Coca-Cola’s products on the sub-continent met the stringent bottled water purity standards set by the European Union.

At a press conference in Delhi, Professor John Gilbert and Dr Stewart Reynolds, from the CSL, said that samples of Coca-Cola, Thums Up, Sprite, Fanta and Limca had been tested and were found to contain less than 0.1 parts per billion of any pesticide.

“There is no issue with the quality and purity of our products,” Rick Frazier, vice-president of technical stewardship at Coca-Cola, said.

The move was the company’s most aggressive response yet to an escalating commercial crisis that has seen a ban on the sale of its products — along with those of PepsiCo — in government and educational institutions in five states.

Kerala, the southern state under the control of the Communist Party of India, has banned outright their manufacture and distribution.

The bans came after a report this month by the Centre for Science & Environment (CSE), a non-government organisation in Delhi, which accused both American companies of allowing in their soft drinks

24 times the permitted levels of pesticides under proposed new regulations.

The resulting furore, which has excited politicians opposed to the influx of Western products and the resulting indigenous cultural erosion, has gathered damaging momentum in recent days. Coca-Cola took out full-page advertisements in Indian newspapers at the weekend asking: “Is there anything safer for you to drink?” Disbelieving consumers were invited to a guided tour of the company’s facilities.

On Sunday, Franklin Lavin, the US Under-Secretary for International Trade, described the bans as a setback for the Indian economy. “At a time when India is working hard to attract and retain foreign investment, it would be unfortunate if the discussion were dominated by those who don’t want to treat foreign companies fairly,” he said.

Most observers agree that the companies are being used to fight the broader issue of ground-water contamination, which the Indian Government has been slow to address and which means that it is more unsafe to eat an egg or drink milk than to take a swig of Coke.

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